PLease Think B4 BUYING
- Thread starter tyson
- Start date
i just have learned this experience and will never do it again. right now i have 4 red belly pacu's in a 15g tank i never knew they were going to be terribly monster. right now im going to sell them to anyone who can properly house them and make them happy.. im so pissed at myself that i didnt do any research about this fish 1st b4 buying it. from now on b4 i buy a fish im gonna do some research about it or ask some people here at MFK for help. i really learned a lot in this forum. 
I'll be the bad guy and say I DON'T agree with the original post. I do in principal but not in pratice. Its a little too black and white... sounds very PETA-esque. I keep several species that are wild caught and are not currently bred in captivity. And I don't feel bad about it. Now, I would NOT buy something wild caught that I knew was either endangered or regulated (CITES listed)... like FRT which are poached.
What we really need is to develop something like they are doing with SaltWater. Like the MARINE AQUARIUM COUNCIL (MAC)... they have studied the effect of harvesting, the methods, etc, and worked hard to come up with SUSTAINABLE practices and then worked to get those practices implemented at the collecting level... working with the local fisherman. Trying to change the way collection takes place while still enabling the porr collector in Third World country X to make a living and support his family.
There seems to be NO freshwater equivalent. Partly because many many of the fish most common in the pet trade are bred in captivity. But, we have to face the facts that many of the oddballs are not... and there needs to be a concerted effort to manage the wild populations and create a system for sustainable harvesting... wether that harvesting is for food for the local community or for the pet trade.
But perhaps, the fact is that its not necessary because only a few of the "oddballs" really are wild caught, and not in large numbers... so there is not a huge effect? ANd the high-volume fish are all raised on farms (even Widebar Dats are farm raised and only farmed ones are allowed to be exported from Thailand... wild ones cannot be exported). But, my thought is, we might assume this, but has the research really been done? We need to know this... not assume this, and unfortunately, there is not an organized effort out there in the FW hobby to address this issue, as there has been in the SW hobby...
saying "don't buy wild caught fish" is far too simplistic.
Stepping off the soapbox now...
What we really need is to develop something like they are doing with SaltWater. Like the MARINE AQUARIUM COUNCIL (MAC)... they have studied the effect of harvesting, the methods, etc, and worked hard to come up with SUSTAINABLE practices and then worked to get those practices implemented at the collecting level... working with the local fisherman. Trying to change the way collection takes place while still enabling the porr collector in Third World country X to make a living and support his family.
There seems to be NO freshwater equivalent. Partly because many many of the fish most common in the pet trade are bred in captivity. But, we have to face the facts that many of the oddballs are not... and there needs to be a concerted effort to manage the wild populations and create a system for sustainable harvesting... wether that harvesting is for food for the local community or for the pet trade.
But perhaps, the fact is that its not necessary because only a few of the "oddballs" really are wild caught, and not in large numbers... so there is not a huge effect? ANd the high-volume fish are all raised on farms (even Widebar Dats are farm raised and only farmed ones are allowed to be exported from Thailand... wild ones cannot be exported). But, my thought is, we might assume this, but has the research really been done? We need to know this... not assume this, and unfortunately, there is not an organized effort out there in the FW hobby to address this issue, as there has been in the SW hobby...
saying "don't buy wild caught fish" is far too simplistic.
Stepping off the soapbox now...
I was thinking that those first posts were more PETA infiltrations too. That one in the middle of the page...definately. And to think we are feeding those jerks with every word we write here 
I shall forever watch what I say publicly...Did I tell you the one about when I put an overfed feeder in my tank ...and when the fish attacked it...the guts squished out everywere...it was so coool 
In the marine environment, coral reefs basically, the water is clear, and scientists can get a fairly decent count. But in most FW habitats, the water is murky and silt ridden, making such counts almost impossible. The only real way to check in FW is with a seine. Are you gonna hold the seine across the Amazon?
Yep Exactly,
If my kids needed food or shoes I'd collect anything, cultivate plants to be missused , kill, rob graves and eat the rich. It's our end of the market thats wrong.
( Thats in repie to Vince )
If my kids needed food or shoes I'd collect anything, cultivate plants to be missused , kill, rob graves and eat the rich. It's our end of the market thats wrong.
( Thats in repie to Vince )
I agree with the original post, but I want to throw out an oservation here while we're on the topic. We want people to stop buying wild caught fish, yet on this forum there is the atitude that the bigger, better, rarer fish you have makes you a cooler fishkeeper. We see people on this site with sweet fish, and we all try to out-do each other with a rarer monster. Pretty much the only way you will acquire a fish that limited people have is buying it wild caught from an importer. We say we shouldn't buy them, yet we praise those who do. Its quite the double standard....
Thats just my opinion. I am all for preservation of the wildlife, bu I also like to see an uncommon fish in a household tank every once in a while. Its an attention getter, which is one of the reasons people keep the fish they do.
Thats just my opinion. I am all for preservation of the wildlife, bu I also like to see an uncommon fish in a household tank every once in a while. Its an attention getter, which is one of the reasons people keep the fish they do.
We can always try. Even if the poaching continues, we'll have to keep trying even if we are fighting a losing battle.
Chinese poachers here in the Philippines managed to bail themselves out despite the fact that they tried to catch 350 Napoleon wrasses(which are listed endangered under CITES) and smuggle them out of the country.
There are several articles that say Chinese waters were already overfished and they seem to be infiltrating other nearby countries for their own resources.
Chinese poachers here in the Philippines managed to bail themselves out despite the fact that they tried to catch 350 Napoleon wrasses(which are listed endangered under CITES) and smuggle them out of the country.
There are several articles that say Chinese waters were already overfished and they seem to be infiltrating other nearby countries for their own resources.